‘You’ll ruin your figure!’ – Excerpt from The Food of Love

Do you remember when you were a child, playing with your Barbie Doll and thinking about what life would be like when you were Grown Up?

Well, d’you know what?

Real women don’t look like that.

What do women actually look like?

Do we even know?

Take this representation of the female form. Titian painted Venus Anadyomene in 1520. She looks pretty realistic, except for the chest area. Like almost every other male painter in the last 500 years, when Titian painted breasts he took where the nipple is on the male torso (somewhere near the armpit) and he plonked a spherical mound behind it.

Breasts don’t look like this.

The nipples normally hang considerably further south.

Really, I have to conclude that all these male painters never actually saw what women looked like without their corsets on, unless they were lying flat on their backs.

Of course, these days we have cameras. They give us a far more accurate image of the female physique. Not.

On the one hand, we see photos of giraffe-like supermodels, with their tiny, pointy breasts.

Of course, you don’t look like them. You’ve just had a baby. Most of these women are too starved to ovulate.

Then there are glamour models. These women have large, round breasts. They also have very short arms and legs, and long torsos. So, when they stick their bottoms out, hold their stomachs in, inflate their rib cages and throw their shoulders back, their breasts look high-slung and perky.

You won’t look like them either because you have to breathe out as well as in, round your shoulders and walk around doing normal human tasks.

You look like a normal human being

My point is that well before women ever think about having a baby or growing older, most of us are concerned that our breasts are either Not Big Enough or Very Droopy.

With no realistic images of the natural female form, we’re all convinced that we’re freaks.

And so girls go out and get themselves surgically remodelled, stuffed with silicone, sliced open and stitched up to meet some surgeon’s idea of aesthetic perfection. Think about it – how freaky is that?

It’s such a shame because no matter how small your breasts are, you’ll get your own natural breast enlargement when you fall pregnant. Three days after you’ve given birth, you’ll have the most fantastic breasts. They’ll be round, pert and disproportionately enormous. The reason why men find this attractive is that deep in their psyche they’ve clocked that this is the image of a fertile woman who can feed their offspring. Being sexy is meant to be linked to reproduction. Of course, at this point, sex will be the last thing on your mind.

So many women struggle with their altered body image after they’ve given birth because the ideal we have of womanhood just isn’t very womanly. We think we’re meant to be thin, angular, uplifted, tight, flat and tanned. Now our bodies have done this most INCREDIBLE thing that women’s bodies do, and we’re dimp-led, streaky, wobbly, large, round and soft. And understandably worried that it’s all downhill from here on the breast front.

Breastfeeding will not make your breasts droopy. Pregnancy might. Once they’ve got larger, they may not go back to being quite the same shape when they get smaller again. The shape of your breasts also depends on your weight and build and the stretchiness of your skin. Whether you have nineteen children or none, no-one is immune to gravity.

Mind you, it’s a shame that low-slung breasts are so socially unacceptable, because they can actually be quite practical when it comes to feeding a baby. It’s handy if you don’t need to prop your baby up with pillows, and can just lie him in your lap. Maybe we’re designed like this for a reason?

Why do we spend so much time being unhappy with the way that we look? Everyone does it. Those supermodels there feel too gawky, too tall and too flat chested. The glamour girls are fretting about their short legs. It’s time to start celebrating women in all the many shapes that we are. And to start valuing our bodies for more than the way that they look – for the amazing things they can do.

Food of Love, The: Your Formula for Successful Breastfeeding

£16.00

A topical, refreshingly different approach to breastfeeding successfully. Features honest discussions about childcare and lots of fantastically funny illustrations.

This book is meant as a funny, handy guide to help new mothers enjoy their baby and is a valuable addition to the existing literature on the emotive subject of breastfeeding. The book is easy to read and… includes numerous pictures to look at if you are feeling too tired or brain-dead to read. It is a fun way to present the advantages of breastfeeding, yet Kate Evans has also included the latest facts and research surrounding breastfeeding… The Food of Love will meet the needs of many new mums and is likely to be of use to breastfeeding counsellors, antenatal teachers, midwives and health professionals. — New Digest NCT Newsletter

£16 with free postage within the UK – add £5 for postage to outside the UK.

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